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| US SecDef: Chuck Hagel |
By Zachary Keck
The Obama administration is quietly reducing security assistance to Asia, even as it pledges to increase it.
The United States is quietly reducing security assistance to the Asia-Pacific even as it publicly pledges to increase it.
The U.S. has two major forms of security assistance to allied and partner nations funded through the State Department. International Military Education and Training (IMET) “provides training and education on a grant basis to [military] students from allied and friendly nations. In addition to improving defense capabilities, IMET facilitates the development of important professional and personal relationships” between U.S. and allied military officers. Foreign Military Financing, on the other hand, seeks to build up allied and partner capabilities by providing “grants for the acquisition of U.S. defense equipment, services and training.”
At the Shangri-La Dialogue last month, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel declared: “Across the Asia-Pacific region, as part of the rebalance, the United States is planning to increase Foreign Military Financing by 35 percent, and military education and training by 40 percent by 2016.”
In his testimony on the FY2015 budget request (PDF) to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month, Daniel Russel, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, depicted a similar narrative.
“The FY 2015 budget request reflects our interests in the Asia-Pacific region, by sustaining key investments made throughout the President’s first and second terms in office and investing in new initiatives to expand and deepen our commitment across the region,” Russel said during his opening statement to the subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific.
Read the full story at The Diplomat